Rests in senaria perfecta .p.

[Jason Stoessel]

Can anyone comment on the use of rests in senaria perfecta (.p.) especially in relation to transmissions of Trecento composers active in Northern Italy, eg. Bartolino da Padova? In particular, there is the seemingly erroneous use of Semibreve+semibreve rest within a mensura in .p. in sources of Bartolino da Padova's Inperial sedendo copied in or around Florence. The same passage is written semibrevis caudata+semibreve rest in northern sources. Given Prosdocimus de Beldemandis' rule that rests cannot be altered in his Tractatus practice cantus mensuralibilis ad modum Ytalicorum (though I suspect a French influence here), could this be a case of unsigned senaria imperfecta (.i.)? (The "Florentine" sources omit several signa divisionis already.)

[Jason Stoessel]

Thanks, David. There's certainly careful marking of .p. and .i. in Per quella, but I wonder what its value is for comparative work given it is a unicum. There's also the fascinating possibility that sources like Man reflect the late reforms advocated by Prosdocimus, but again I can't recall anyone looking at this apart from a few delightful but short studies in Italian on the "ligature parigrado". 

And, yes, for you of all people, I ought to be a little more careful treading around the question of Inperial's ascription considering I am writing about it at the moment!

[David Fallows]

My Ciconia notes are in Basel and I'm in Manchester for the next ten days, but I'm fairly certain there's something similar in Per quella strada.